GAZA CITY, Nov 18: Israeli air strikes on Sunday killed 23 Palestinians in the bloodiest day so far of its massive air campaign on the Gaza Strip, as diplomatic efforts to broker a truce intensified.

With Egypt at the centre of efforts to broker a ceasefire, Palestinian officials said it was possible a deal would be reached “today or tomorrow”. But there was no let-up in the bloodshed in the Hamas-run Gaza Strip, with medics saying women and children accounted for 14 of Sunday’s 23 killed, among them five babies and toddlers, in Israeli strikes from the air.

In the day’s most lethal raid, at least nine members of the same family -- five of them children -- were among 10 people killed when an Israeli missile destroyed a family home in Gaza City, the health ministry said.

At the scene, medics and bystanders all pitched in to remove the rubble to dig out the bodies in the futile hope of finding survivors, as people watched in shock, some weeping openly.

The latest violence hiked the Palestinian casualty toll to 69 dead and more than 600 injured in almost 100 hours of raids, while three Israelis have been killed and more than 50 injured by rocket fire since Wednesday.

With Israel warning it could further escalate its operations in Gaza, US President Barack Obama on Sunday said it was “preferable” for the Gaza crisis to be resolved without a “ramping up” of Israeli military activity.

In Cairo, senior Hamas officials said Egyptian-mediated talks with Israel to end the bloodshed were “positive” but now focused on the possible stumbling block of guaranteeing the terms of a truce. An outcome acceptable to Hamas would involve assurances about the United States, Israel’s main backer, being the “guaranteeing party”, said an official. Security officials said an Israeli envoy also arrived in Cairo on Sunday for the talks. Egypt’s President Mohamed Morsi, meanwhile, met both Hamas chief Khaled Meshaal and Islamic Jihad chief Abdullah Shalah to discuss “Egyptian efforts to end the aggression,” his office said without giving details.

Earlier, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned that Israel was ready to “significantly expand” its operation, ahead of talks with French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius, on a whirlwind truce tour of the region. “The army is prepared to significantly expand the operation,” Netanyahu told a cabinet meeting.

Mr Fabius later said his country was willing to help broker a truce. “War is not an option, it is never an option ...There are two key words: urgency and ceasefire,” he told journalists in Tel Aviv.

Israeli aircraft also hit two media centres in Gaza City, wounding eight journalists, a health ministry spokesman said.

British Foreign Secretary William Hague said “a ground invasion of Gaza would lose Israel a lot of the international support and sympathy that they have in this situation”.—AFP